FILE - In this June 3, 2009, file photo, former first lady Nancy Reagan speaks in the Capitol Rotunda in Washington, during a ceremony to unveil a statue of President Ronald Reagan. The former first lady has died at 94, The Associated Press confirmed Sunday, March 6, 2016. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)

David Dreier knew he was bucking President George W. Bush’s wishes in 2005, but former first lady Nancy Reagan wanted to ensure Dreier would stay strong in the face of blowback from the anti-abortion wing of the Republican Party.

The former GOP congressman from San Dimas said he was within a few minutes of delivering a speech that year in Los Angeles when his phone rang. A staffer answered it as Dreier went through last-minute preparations.

“The assistant tells me, ‘Nancy is on the phone,’ ” Dreier recalled Monday. “I said, ‘Tell her I’ll call her back right after I give this speech.’”

Then Dreier said he heard the first lady’s voice — strong and firm — through the tiny phone speaker.

“David Dreier, you will not call me back,” she said. “You’re going to talk to me right this minute.”

Reagan wanted to nail down his support for federal funding of embryonic stem-cell research. Dreier had been pushing for a compromise with Bush that would free up the dollars to aid in the fight against Alzheimer’s. Bush was siding with anti-abortion groups opposed to the measure.

“She said I knew what she had gone through and that if we can’t pursue every means possible to try and prevent this kind of suffering, that would be foolish,” he said. “I was already there with her on it.”

Dreier found himself thinking about the exchange just a day after the first lady died Sunday at 94.

He didn’t remember what the speech was about or whom it was addressed to when she called him that day. He wasn’t even sure of the year. He just remembered her words.

Dreier’s relationship with the Reagans dated back to the late 1970s — Christmas parties, his first successful run for Congress in 1980 and the tough years as Reagan slipped into the depths of Alzheimer’s while she took care of him.

Dreier said there was irony in the former president losing his memory when the first lady “never forgot a thing.”

It’s been nearly 12 years since Reagan died, but Dreier said that if you count the years with Alzheimer’s, it’s been more than 22 years that his absence was felt.

“I had a talk with her over the last year, and she’d been saying, ‘God has forgotten me.’ ” Dreier said. “She seemed so clearly ready to go and be with Ronald Reagan, and those who knew her have to be happy for the fact they are now reunited.”

The embryonic stem-cell research issue stood out in his mind because it came after Sept. 11, when the country seemed unified but grew more polarized with the Iraq War and a bitter election between John Kerry and Bush.

But he said Reagan’s push for cures to such diseases as Alzheimer’s will be a key legacy.

When her death was made public, the Alzheimer’s Association tweeted: “We mourn the death of former first lady & Alzheimer’s advocate Nancy Reagan. Her involvement in the cause inspired us & the Alz community.”

Dreier, who lived within a few miles of the first lady, said he planned to attend the funeral Friday.

He said more memories keep popping up in his head.

There was the time that she got upset with him when he chose to run for Congress instead of signing up to be her chief of staff as Reagan ran for president in 1980. Or when she gave a speech and helped his campaign during his first run for Congress as a 25-year- old in 1978, how disconsolate she was at her husband’s funeral in Washington, D.C., and how happy she was just being in his presence.

Between Monday meetings — he’s the chairman of the Annenberg-Dreier Commission at Sunnylands, which works on trade issues around the Pacific Rim and is the founder of the Dreier Roundtable at Claremont McKenna College — he said it had started to sink in. He first met her at Claremont McKenna College more than 40 years ago.

“I keep thinking, wow, Nancy is gone,” he said. “It’s the end of an era.”

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